Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
技术的可见性与累积性创新：来自商业秘密法的证据
Visibility of Technology and Cumulative Innovation: Evidence From Trade Secrets Laws
摘要
Innovation depends on the incentives to create new ideas as well as access to existing ones. Access, in turn, depends on the inherent visibility of an initial invention and on the inventor's decision to disclose it, for example, by patenting. Compared to product innovations, process innovations tend to be less visible, making secrecy as an intellectual property strategy relatively more attractive; and stronger trade secrets protection laws could hamper their disclosure even further. Using exogenous variation in the level of trade secrets protection from the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, we show that stronger protection has a disproportionately negative effect on patenting of processes. We further show in simulations that these changes in disclosure can have large implications for follow‐on innovation and welfare.
中文摘要
创新取决于创造新思想的激励以及对现有思想的获取。而获取又取决于一项初始发明的固有可见性，以及发明人披露该发明的决定，例如通过申请专利来披露。与产品创新相比，工艺创新往往不那么可见，这使得保密作为一种知识产权策略相对更具吸引力；而更强的商业秘密保护法可能进一步阻碍其披露。利用《统一商业秘密法》在商业秘密保护水平上的外生变化，我们表明，更强的保护对工艺专利的申请产生了不成比例的负面影响。我们进一步通过模拟表明，披露方面的这些变化可能对后续创新和福利产生重大影响。